Kobe quake to help RI timber sales

Kobe quake to help RI timber sales

JAKARTA (JP): An executive predicted that Japan, rocked last week by the worst earthquake in 50 years, will import more plywood to reconstruct damaged houses in Kobe.

"It's a good moment for Indonesia to concentrate on plywood exports to Japan to increase our market share there," Citra Gunawan, president of PT Surya Dumai Industry which plans to go public this year, told journalists on Saturday.

He predicted that Japan would spend more money for plywood than before. Early estimates show that it would cost $10 billion to $20 billion to repair the damages in Kobe.

The extra demand from Japan is also expected to push prices of plywood up again after dropping to the current level of $380 per cubic meter, which represents a 32.14 percent drop from $560 in the third quarter of 1993.

Indonesia, the world's largest plywood exporter, produces about 10 million cubic meters of plywood annually, most of which is exported to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

A trade official at the Japanese embassy said recently that Indonesia's share in Japan's total plywood imports remained at around 84 percent last year, almost the same as 10 years ago.

Citra noted that Japan remains the most lucrative plywood market as some 60 percent of its annual demand of nine million cubic meters of plywood are imported.

"Apart from the earthquake, Japan serves as an especially potential market for plywood as most Japanese prefer wood products to others," Citra said.

Official data show that Indonesia's plywood exports fell by nine percent during the January-September period of last year to US$2.8 billion from the corresponding period in 1993.

Analysts argued that the drop was caused by low demand from recession-stricken Japan and increased supply from Malaysia.

A report said that in 1994 Japan imported about 4.04 million cubic meters of plywood, of which 3.3 million cubic meters were imported from Indonesia. (rid)